Unfairly Forgotten Songshttp://forgotten-songs.com
Remembering the songs radio has forgotten.Fri, 18 Jan 2019 05:35:05 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3http://forgotten-songs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/record-centerpiece-150x150.jpgUnfairly Forgotten Songshttp://forgotten-songs.com
3232Sexy Eyes by Dr. Hookhttp://forgotten-songs.com/sexy-eyes-dr-hook/
http://forgotten-songs.com/sexy-eyes-dr-hook/#respondFri, 04 Jan 2019 13:57:39 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=930Dr. Hook is one of those 1970s groups that a lot of people know by name. I would imagine, though, that most people don’t remember many, if any, of Dr. Hook’s hits (and they had several). It’s interesting, though, that a group which had top 20 hits in five out of ten years of the … Continue reading "Sexy Eyes by Dr. Hook"

]]>Dr. Hook is one of those 1970s groups that a lot of people know by name. I would imagine, though, that most people don’t remember many, if any, of Dr. Hook’s hits (and they had several). It’s interesting, though, that a group which had top 20 hits in five out of ten years of the 70s is so easily forgotten. And, surprisingly enough, one of those forgotten hits was one of the group’s highest charting.

The early days of Dr. Hook

Per AllMusic, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show (as it was originally called) got its start in the late 1960s as a collaboration between bassist/vocalist Ray Sawyer and guitarist/vocalist Dennis Locorriere. They added some of Mr. Sawyer’s bandmates from his old band, The Chocolate Papers, to form their original lineup. The name “Dr. Hook” came from Ray Sawyer’s use of an eyepatch after a car accident and the Peter Pan character Captain Hook.* (AllMusic thinks the “Medicine Show” portion may have been a drug reference but offers no justification for thinking that.)

The group had what one could call an eclectic early history. They recorded songs by Shel Silverstein, performed as their own opening act, and, after recording an entire song about it, made the cover of the Rolling Stone.** But, they did have two top ten hits to show for it.

The late 70s

In 1975, now with a newly shortened name, Dr. Hook moved to Capitol Records. Several albums followed, along with several more top 20 singles and some lineup changes. It wasn’t until 1978’s Pleasure and Pain, though, that Dr. Hook had a certified gold album, with hits that sounded much less like the country rock sound the group had had. Instead, AllMusic describes Dr. Hook at this point as “disco-tinged balladeers”. I don’t think the writer meant that as a compliment.

Dr. Hook had released an album per year since 1973, and so 1979 brought the follow-up to Pleasure and Pain, entitled Sometimes You Win. The AllMusic review describes this particular album as a “soft rock-disco masterpiece”.

The first single from Sometimes You Win was “Better Love Next Time”, which almost, but not quite, hit the top ten in very early 1980. The second single, “Sexy Eyes”, was a fairly simple love-at-first-sight song set on a dance floor.

Chart Performance

“Sexy Eyes”, as it turned out, ended up being the best performing single by Dr. Hook. Entering Billboard’s Hot 100 at #71 (just ahead of “Better Love Next Time” in that song’s final week on the chart) for the week ending February 16, 1980 (chart), the song began a slow upward climb. It was more than three months before “Sexy Eyes” peaked at #5 for the week ending May 24 (chart). It stayed at #5 for one more week before taking a much quicker dive off the chart, exiting after 21 weeks. After a fairly impressive run for that time, “Sexy Eyes” made the Year-End Hot 100 singles chart for 1980 (magazine).

After “Sexy Eyes”

All was not necessarily well with Dr. Hook, though. Another label change, this time to Casablanca, did not yield chart success to the degree the group had previously had. Two albums didn’t chart well, and two singles hit the lower parts of the top 40. And then Ray Sawyer, reportedly not happy with the direction the band had taken, departed. By 1985, the band had called it quits.

Dennis Locorriere, who retained ownership of the name “Dr. Hook”, became a session musician, while Ray Sawyer toured for many years as “Dr. Hook featuring Ray Sawyer” or some variation thereof. Mr. Locorriere, therefore, had to license the name to Mr. Sawyer to allow this touring. In this 2015 interview (archived; language warning), Mr. Locorriere stated that despite the legal wrangling required for such licensing, there was no acrimony between the two of them, even though they hadn’t been in touch for a while.

I, personally, have not heard a classic hits station play a Dr. Hook song in many years, the last time being thanks to the Tom Kent Radio Network, which, at the time, was playing double shots of groups and featuring the first hit (which, for Dr. Hook, was “Sylvia’s Mother”) and the biggest hit (“Sexy Eyes”). It would be nice to hear that one on the radio again sometime.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/sexy-eyes-dr-hook/feed/0Wait For You by Bonhamhttp://forgotten-songs.com/wait-for-you-bonham/
http://forgotten-songs.com/wait-for-you-bonham/#respondThu, 27 Dec 2018 14:24:51 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=916Led Zeppelin, it goes without saying, will never be featured on this site. This is a site for forgotten songs, but a lot of Led Zeppelin songs still get radio airplay.* It was for that reason that so many other bands tried to sound like Led Zeppelin. One of those bands, though, had the added … Continue reading "Wait For You by Bonham"

]]>Led Zeppelin, it goes without saying, will never be featured on this site. This is a site for forgotten songs, but a lot of Led Zeppelin songs still get radio airplay.* It was for that reason that so many other bands tried to sound like Led Zeppelin. One of those bands, though, had the added advantage of having the son of a Led Zeppelin member as its founder. Show of hands: who remembers the band Bonham?

Meet Jason Bonham

Jason Bonham started playing drums at age 4, which is not surprising, given that his father was Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. He was in a couple of bands in his late teens and 20s and even played drums on Jimmy Page’s 1988 album Outrider. In 1989, he formed his own band, which, conveniently enough, he named Bonham after himself.

Bonham started out strong with its debut album, The Disregard of Timekeeping, released in mid-1989. Some critics, though, weren’t as keen on the sound of the album; Allmusic, for example, thought it sounded more like a Robert Plant solo album of that time period than a Led Zeppelin album, which is apparently what the critics were hoping to hear from a band named after John Bonham’s son.

The first single, “Wait For You”, is a straightforward song about the protagonist waiting for the object of his fancy, even though she is “too young” at present. How young she is, we aren’t told.

Quite honestly, the feel of “Wait For You” is much like that of a Robert Plant solo offering of the late 80s. In fact, lead singer Daniel MacMaster even sounds a bit like Mr. Plant on this particular track.

Chart Performance

“Wait For You” never really got much airplay on some top 40 stations even when it came out; instead, at least where I lived at the time, it got most of its airplay on AOR-oriented stations. Nevertheless, the airplay, plus the single’s sales, were enough to push it into Billboard’s Hot 100. The single debuted at #91 for the week ending November 25, 1989 (chart) before rising, rather slowly, to a peak of #55 seven weeks later (chart). In an uncommon bit of chart symmetry, it stayed on the charts seven more weeks before dropping off. As might be expected despite its 15 weeks on the Hot 100, it did not appear on the 1990 year-end chart.

Of course, since it was receiving more airplay on rock stations, “Wait For You” did chart much higher on the Album Rock Tracks chart (now called the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart). It spent 22 weeks on the chart, peaking at #9 for the week ending November 4, 1989 (chart).

After “Wait For You”

As it turned out, “Wait For You” would be the only song from Bonham to hit the Hot 100. Two other tracks from The Disregard of Timekeeping would chart on the Album Rock chart, and one further album (Mad Hatter) would come but would not chart. Shortly thereafter, Bonham was no more.

Interestingly enough, though, most of the band’s lineup would reunite just a couple of years later as Motherland, though it didn’t last long either. As for Jason Bonham, he has stayed busy with various bands, including playing live with Foreigner for a few years, and even the very occasional Led Zeppelin reunion, where he filled in for his father.

Whither “Wait For You”?

As far as I can recall, the last time I heard “Wait For You” on American terrestrial radio was back in 1989, before it had even peaked on the charts.** One would think, given that classic rock stations are still heavy on Led Zeppelin tracks, that those same stations might give “Wait For You” a spin or two sometime.

* And deservedly so.
** Luckily, I was ready to tape it off the radio when I heard it.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/wait-for-you-bonham/feed/0I Know What Boys Like by The Waitresseshttp://forgotten-songs.com/i-know-what-boys-like-the-waitresses/
http://forgotten-songs.com/i-know-what-boys-like-the-waitresses/#respondMon, 24 Dec 2018 07:40:19 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=907Occasionally, a musical act, even though it is officially a one-hit wonder, can find itself known for multiple reasons. Stranger still, that act may find that, while some of its other non-charting work has endured, its one hit didn’t. That is exactly the case with the short-lived early-80s new wave group The Waitresses. The Beginnings … Continue reading "I Know What Boys Like by The Waitresses"

]]>Occasionally, a musical act, even though it is officially a one-hit wonder, can find itself known for multiple reasons. Stranger still, that act may find that, while some of its other non-charting work has endured, its one hit didn’t. That is exactly the case with the short-lived early-80s new wave group The Waitresses.

The Beginnings of The Waitresses

The Waitresses began, quite literally, only in the mind of guitarist Chris Butler, who had been in any number of local bands during the 1970s. Mr. Butler, also a songwriter, started The Waitresses with one song he had written, a track called “I Know What Boys Like”. As Allmusic reports, he performed every instrument on the track himself* in its original recording in 1977, with his friend Patty Donahue, under the name Patty Darling, on vocals.

Eventually ending up in New York, Mr. Butler used his track to land a recording contract with ZE Records.** As the band was pretty much still fictional at that time, he then had to scramble to get some actual personnel. Ms. Donahue signed on, along with bassist Dave Hofstra and at least one of Mr. Butler’s former bandmates. In the meantime, ZE Records had released the track, while promptly did absolutely nothing on the charts, though it got some club play.

The short heyday of The Waitresses

Now having more than just Chris Butler, The Waitresses set about recording their first album. That album, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?, was released to good reviews and performed fairly well on the album chart. Prior to that, however, the song which has become the most enduring song The Waitresses released, “Christmas Wrapping”, came out in late 1981 on the ZE Records Christmas album titled, appropriately enough, A Christmas Record.

The one and only single released from Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful? was the song Chris Butler had recorded several years earlier, “I Know What Boys Like”. Ms. Donahue’s attitude-laden lyrics is widely credited (at least by Allmusic) for the success of the song, which features her leading some poor “sucker” on, ending with a playful, if slightly mean-spirited, laugh.

Chart Performance

“I Know What Boys Like”, despite having peaked at #23 on what Billboard now calls its Mainstream Rock Songs chart*** back on February 27, 1982 (chart | magazine), didn’t manage to enter the Hot 100 until May 8 of that year, debuting at #84 (chart | magazine). Its ascent of the chart was a short one; it peaked at #62 before that month ended (chart | magazine). Three weeks later, it was off the chart. (It did make the top 20 in Australia, though.)

The Waitresses released one more full album and two EPs in the two years following the chart run of “I Know What Boys Like”; they also performed the theme song to the CBS TV show Square Pegs. However, all was not well with the band; Patty Donahue left briefly, came back, and then left for good, and soon afterward, The Waitresses were no more. Unfortunately, Patty Donahue died at age 40 of lung cancer in 1996.

These days, “Christmas Wrapping” will still find airplay in December on one or more radio stations in pretty much any American market, and, very occasionally, some digital subchannel network will rerun Square Pegs, but you will rarely hear “I Know What Boys Like” on terrestrial American radio. Sucker.

* Billboard’s biography of The Waitresses, which has been scrubbed from its website for reasons I don’t understand, credits the saxophone work to Chris Butler’s bandmate Ralph Carney.
** ZE Records, while probably not a well known label, did have some recognizable names signed to it, including Was (Not Was) and Kid Creole and the Coconuts.
*** Back then, it was called Rock Albums and Top Tracks and was actually two charts: albums and singles.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/i-know-what-boys-like-the-waitresses/feed/0Ai No Corrida by Quincy Joneshttp://forgotten-songs.com/ai-no-corrida-quincy-jones/
http://forgotten-songs.com/ai-no-corrida-quincy-jones/#respondThu, 13 Dec 2018 07:08:42 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=895It isn’t unheard of for the artist credited on a track not to be the one who actually sings on that track. Carlos Santana, for example, made a career of it. But while many Santana tracks are still receiving airplay, one artist whose credited tracks are much more difficult to hear on American radio is … Continue reading "Ai No Corrida by Quincy Jones"

]]>It isn’t unheard of for the artist credited on a track not to be the one who actually sings on that track. Carlos Santana, for example, made a career of it. But while many Santana tracks are still receiving airplay, one artist whose credited tracks are much more difficult to hear on American radio is famed producer Quincy Jones.

Quincy Jones Before The Dude

I suppose I don’t really need to go into the career of Quincy Jones, which has spanned over five decades. His website tells of how he started off with trumpet playing, became vice-president of Mercury Records in the early 60s, produced tracks for approximately a bazillion artists, scored dozens of movies, and did a bunch of other stuff. Basically, he was, and is, a huge name in the music industry. Oh, and he managed, in the midst of all that, to put out a few albums of his own.

Probably the best known (though not the highest charting) album by Quincy Jones was The Dude, released in 1981. The Dude featured, among others, vocalists Patti Austin and James Ingram (for whom Quincy Jones would produce the number one smash “Baby, Come To Me” later that year*).

The backstory of “Ai No Corrida”

The first single released from The Dude was a remake of a 1980 Chaz Jankel song which had not had much chart success anywhere except Belgium. The title, which translates to “rope of love”, comes from a rather explicit Japanese film based on the true story of an intense relationship between a former geisha and her lover. This page will not go into any detail about that relationship, thank you very much, but it will point out that the intensity of the relationship in the movie (and, I suppose, in real life) is reflected quite well in lyrics such as “you thrill me, half kill me”. Yikes.**

Quincy Jones’s version of “Ai No Corrida” was close to being a note-for-note remake of Chaz Jankel’s original, though Mr. Jones’s version featured Ms. Austin singing backup vocals alongside a singer named Dune (a.k.a Charles May), about whom not much information is available online.

Chart Performance

The Quincy Jones version of “Ai No Corrida” debuted on Billboard’s Hot 100 just a couple of weeks after The Dude had been released, charting at #81 for the week ending April 11, 1981 (chart). It peaked, in its eighth week on the chart, at #28 (chart). The song remained at #28 for another week before falling out of the top 40 the next week, and all the way off the Hot 100 in three more weeks.

“Ai No Corrida” did not, as one might imagine given that chart history, make the 1981 year-end chart, but it did just barely crack the top 10 of what was then called the Hot Soul Singles chart.

Following “Ai No Corrida”

Quincy Jones had two more singles from The Dude (“Just Once” and “One Hundred Ways”) hit the top 40 after that; both songs, in fact, charted higher than “Ai No Corrida”. Following that, he only reached the top 40 two more times, both several years later.

Fret not for Quincy Jones, though; he kept rather busy after The Dude. For example, it was just the next year in which he reunited with a young pop star whose previous album he had produced to work on a follow-up; that follow-up, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, only went on to become the best selling album of all time.

One would think that, with so much name recognition, Quincy Jones could get some spins for his music even today. “One Hundred Ways”, I suppose, still gets a little bit of airplay (but not much). “Ai No Corrida”, on the other hand, has pretty much disappeared entirely.

* Yes, “Baby, Come To Me” was produced in 1981…it just took until early 1983 to finally get to number one.** Now that I think about it, how did this get on the radio at all with lyrics like that?Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/ai-no-corrida-quincy-jones/feed/0Heaven On The 7th Floor by Paul Nicholashttp://forgotten-songs.com/heaven-on-the-7th-floor-by-paul-nicholas/
http://forgotten-songs.com/heaven-on-the-7th-floor-by-paul-nicholas/#respondSat, 01 Dec 2018 08:15:30 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=878It’s always amazing when songwriters can cram a full story into a three-minute song. Some of these stories have lasted, while some have fallen by the wayside. Some of the more enduring story songs include (to name just a couple) Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun” and Meat Loaf’s “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”. Paul Nicholas’s … Continue reading "Heaven On The 7th Floor by Paul Nicholas"

]]>It’s always amazing when songwriters can cram a full story into a three-minute song. Some of these stories have lasted, while some have fallen by the wayside. Some of the more enduring story songs include (to name just a couple) Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun” and Meat Loaf’s “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”. Paul Nicholas’s one and only hit song, “Heaven on the 7th Floor”, on the other hand, falls into the latter category.

The Early Years

Paul Oscar Beuselinck started his career as a singer, though not one with much success in the American market. In his native UK, though he did not burn up the charts there either, he did attract the attention of producer Robert Stigwood, who signed him to his record label and also cast him in the UK productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.

By this time, Mr. Beuselinck was using the stage name Paul Nicholas, and he parlayed his early success into further roles on stage and screen, including multiple movies produced by Mr. Stigwood.

Going Back to Music

However (according to the October 22, 1977 American Top 40, per Wikipedia*), on coming to America to audition for a production of Hamlet and not being selected, Mr. Nicholas apparently decided to make more of a name for himself through the music charts. Now with RSO Records, Paul Nicholas released his eponymous debut album. The reviews, sad to say, weren’t stellar, with one review calling some of the songs on Paul Nicholas “ridiculous” and “unremarkable”, probably not a great combination. Record buyers in his native UK seemed to like the songs, though, sending three of them into the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart.

The story of Heaven on the 7th Floor

“Heaven on the 7th Floor” has a rather simple story to it. Our hero is presented with his dream girl (du jour?) in the elevator lobby. He makes a quick pass at her as they enter the elevator and gets unceremoniously shot down. Then the elevator gets stuck, trapping him and Dream Girl together for however short a time. And that’s pretty much it. He and Dream Girl don’t actually get together, except in his overactive imagination.

I could criticize the protagonist’s choice in women. Now, my view of the dream woman is colored by the fact that 40-something years have passed since this song came out, but does she have to depend on him to get them rescued from a stuck elevator? And why would he want to get with a woman who dismissed him instantly (and rather harshly)? Yes, part helpless victim, part ice queen: is this woman worth his time? Maybe not. Maybe that’s a failing on our hero’s part.

Despite the lyrics of this song, in which the two, um, total strangers get together only in the mind of the guy, this song is catchy. To be perfectly frank, in my opinion, the music is one of the bounciest and best disco tracks of 1977. It takes a silly little elevator breakdown non-story and makes it into a song that I want to listen to, even today.

Chart Performance

“Heaven on the 7th Floor” entered Billboard’s Hot 100 at #79 for the week ending August 20, 1977 (chart). After a fairly slow (for its time) climb up the charts, it finally peaked, in its 15th week on the chart, at #6 (chart | magazine). Amazingly enough given the single’s age at that point, it held at #6 for two more weeks before taking a 15-position drop in week 18. It managed to hang on the charts for five more weeks before finally dropping off in early 1978. The timing of its peak success kept it off the year-end charts of either 1977 or 1978, since it was right near its peak when Billboard started counting chart weeks toward the next year. It did, however, manage to cross over onto the Easy Listening chart, where it peaked at #23 for the week ending October 29 (chart | magazine).

Paul Nicholas had one more charting single, On The Strip, which hit the Hot 100 in the summer of 1978, but it peaked at #67, and so I feel justified in classifying him as a one-hit wonder, and a forgotten one at that. But fret not for Mr. Nicholas: though his pop career was short-lived, he has been acting fairly consistently either on screen or stage since then, and a company he co-founded has produced a lot of stage shows.

And how forgotten is that pop career? Amazon doesn’t, as of this writing, have any digital versions of any of Paul Nicholas’s music apart from “Heaven on the 7th Floor”, and that’s only available as part of a compilation album. Of course, it goes without saying that “Heaven on the 7th Floor” hasn’t gotten many, if any, spins on American terrestrial radio for a long time.

* I’m violating my own policy by linking to Wikipedia, but unless someone produces a transcript of the 10/22/1977 AT40, this is the best reference I have for this.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/heaven-on-the-7th-floor-by-paul-nicholas/feed/0You by Rita Coolidgehttp://forgotten-songs.com/you-by-rita-coolidge/
http://forgotten-songs.com/you-by-rita-coolidge/#respondMon, 19 Nov 2018 16:09:51 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=864Rita Coolidge was one of those artists who could have been known for many different things during her career. She had some success with then-husband Kris Kristofferson. Before that, according to multiple accounts, she wrote the piano coda of the Derek and the Dominoes classic “Layla”. But I would imagine most people remember her best … Continue reading "You by Rita Coolidge"

]]>Rita Coolidge was one of those artists who could have been known for many different things during her career. She had some success with then-husband Kris Kristofferson. Before that, according to multiple accounts, she wrote the piano coda of the Derek and the Dominoes classic “Layla”. But I would imagine most people remember her best for a string of hits in the late 70s, all of which were remakes. Two of those were top ten hits (though even those are not getting much airplay these days), but how many of my readers remember a top 30 hit entitled, simply enough, “You”?

The early years

Rita Coolidge’s biography, per her own website, honestly, doesn’t cover much of her life from before the 21st century, but Allmusictells of her beginnings as a songwriter, backup vocalist, and jingle singer. Ms. Coolidge’s songwriting talents yielded the melody which became the piano coda in “Layla”, though, as her website points out, she never received credit for this. Several sources appear to corroborate her claim to have written it, however, including Bobby Whitlock of Derek of the Dominoes, though he didn’t care for it:

The original single did not have it and it was great without it. When we played it the two times that we did it was sans piano. That piano part in my opinion has nothing to do with this song that Eric [Clapton] wrote entirely himself. It’s about his experience. Not Jim’s! Jim [Gordon, the band’s drummer] took that piano melody from his ex-girlfriend Rita Coolidge. I know because in the [Delaney & Bonnie] days I lived in John Garfield’s old house in the Hollywood Hills and there was a guest house with an upright piano in it. Rita and Jim were up there in the guest house and invited me to join in on writing this song with them called “Time”. I didn’t hear it as rock ‘n’ roll and bowed out of the little songwriting session. Her sister Priscilla wound up recording it with Booker T. Jones. I still don’t think that it’s rock ‘n’ roll and really has no place on Eric’s incredibly soul on the line for the world to hear song about his world and his experience. Jim took the melody from Rita’s song and didn’t give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off. I knew but nobody would listen to or believe me. I have told this story for years. That piano coda taints the integrity of this incredibly beautiful song. It has no place on it.

Chart Success

Regardless of people’s feelings about the “Layla” coda, Ms. Coolidge ended up getting her own recording contract with A&M. She recorded for several years, including several solo albums and three with Mr. Kristofferson, without a lot of pop chart success.* That changed in 1977 with her top-ten platinum album Anytime…Anywhere, which included “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher”, a #2 remake of a Jackie Wilson classic, and “We’re All Alone”, a #7 remake of a Boz Scaggs B-side.

Apparently not wanting to waste any time after the success of Anytime…Anywhere, Ms. Coolidge released Love Me Again about two months after the last single from the previous album had dropped off the charts. While it didn’t reach the same level of success as its predecessor, Love Me Again did quite well.

In keeping with her recent hits before Love Me Again, the first single released from the album was a remake. “You” was a remake of a single by Australian singer Marcia Hines, released the previous year. While Ms. Hines’s version was a #2 smash in her native Australia, it was never released in North America at all. Ms. Coolidge’s version of “You” has been described as more mellow than that of Ms. Hines, but it still maintains the disco sound of the original.

Chart Performance

“You” entered Billboard’s Hot 100 at #83 for the week ending July 1, 1978 (chart | magazine). It made a fairly steady climb up the charts before peaking at #25 seven weeks later (chart | magazine). It held there for another week before moving back down rather quickly. In all, it spent 12 weeks on the Hot 100. “You” did not appear on the 1978 year end chart, though “We’re All Alone”, which had peaked in November 1977, did. Go figure.**

The single performed much better on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, spending 17 weeks there and peaking at #3 in early August 1978 (chart | magazine).

After “You”

Rita Coolidge continued to record for several years following Love Me Again, landing two more singles on the top 40 before stepping away from the music business for a while. These days, she is recording again, occasionally, and she is still performing as well.

For some reason, pretty much none of Rita Coolidge’s singles get much airplay on terrestrial radio these days. I would enjoy hearing them on the radio again. How about “You”?

* They did win a couple of Grammys recording together, though.
** Yes, I know Billboard used a period from mid-November to mid-November to determine its year-end chart back then.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/you-by-rita-coolidge/feed/0Diamonds by Herb Alperthttp://forgotten-songs.com/diamonds-by-herb-alpert/
http://forgotten-songs.com/diamonds-by-herb-alpert/#respondMon, 15 Oct 2018 05:11:34 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=853When one thinks of Herb Alpert, it’s easy to think about his long recording career. There were lots of hits, including a number one vocal hit and a number one instrumental hit. Most people, I would imagine, think mostly of the 1960s and 70s when thinking about all his hits. Fewer people, however, would think … Continue reading "Diamonds by Herb Alpert"

]]>When one thinks of Herb Alpert, it’s easy to think about his long recording career. There were lots of hits, including a number one vocal hit and a number one instrumental hit. Most people, I would imagine, think mostly of the 1960s and 70s when thinking about all his hits. Fewer people, however, would think of a late 80s top ten hit that featured Janet Jackson.

As successful of a career Herb Alpert had as a recording artist, that wasn’t where he had his greatest successes. He formed Carnival Records, along with Jerry Moss, in 1962. As it turned out, that name was already in use, and so the label ended up adopting the initials of the two men, becoming A&M Records. A&M signed a lot of still-recognizable-today names over the next few decades, as well as, of course, releasing all of Herb Alpert’s albums (with or without the Tijuana Brass).

In need of a comeback

As stated, Herb Alpert had a lot of hits in the 60s and 70s as a recording artist (mostly during the 60s, to be fair). By 1987, though, it had been five years since any Herb Alpert single had hit the top 40. Teaming up with up-and-coming producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Herb Alpert embraced a somewhat different sound on his next album, Keep Your Eye On Me, including more of the style of R&B that would come to be known as New Jack Swing, though it hadn’t been called that at this point.

Per Allmusic, Mssrs. Jam and Lewis had written a track that caught the attention of A&M executive John McClain. Mr. McClain suggested they save it for a future project, which turned out to be Keep Your Eye On Me. It just so happened that Janet Jackson, who had had a stellar 1986, thanks to her quintuple-platinum smash album Control and its five top-five singles, heard that track and wanted to sing on it. Likely helped by the fact that she was signed to A&M at that time, Ms. Jackson got her wish and sang on two tracks on the album (along with Lisa Keith, who was primarily a backup singer but who had a forgotten hit of her own* a few years later).

The title track to Keep Your Eye On Me, rather than “Diamonds”, the track on which Janet Jackson’s vocals are most prominent, was the first to be released. It cracked the top 50, but not the top 40.

Chart Performance

“Diamonds” was released as the second single from Keep Your Eye On Me. A true song of its era, “Diamonds” captured the essence of the “Me Decade” (with lyrics like “love don’t come for free”) and wrapped it up in some catchy R&B and a throbbing beat, topped with Herb Alpert’s trumpet.

“Diamonds” entered Billboard’s Hot 100 at #84 for the week ending April 11, 1987 (chart). It peaked at #5 for the week ending June 20 (chart). In addition to spending 19 weeks on the Hot 100, the single also spent two weeks at #1 on the R&B chart (which was then called the Hot Black Singles chart). “Diamonds” was enough of a success for Billboard to rank it #79 on its year-end chart for 1987 (magazine).

One more single from Keep Your Eye On Me, entitled “Making Love In The Rain”, also featuring Lisa Keith and Janet Jackson, managed to hit the top 40, but that was the last charting hit for Herb Alpert. Mr. Alpert did pay back a big favor to the featured vocalist on “Diamonds” by playing trumpet on at least one track on Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814.

After “Diamonds”

The same year as the appearance of “Diamonds” in the top five, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss sold A&M Records to Polygram. Unhappy with Polygram, the two stepped away from the label entirely in 1993. The pair were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 for their accomplishments. Of course, Mr. Alpert has stayed busy since then. Per his website, he has been painting for four decades and sculpting for three, and he has also produced a few Broadway shows.

Now, at this point, there aren’t too many stations still playing Herb Alpert’s hits. 50s-60s oldies stations have largely disappeared at this point, so finding his earlier hits on the radio might be difficult, though you might occasionally still hear Mr. Alpert’s 1979 #1 hit “Rise”. “Diamonds”, however, has received little to no airplay since its chart run.

* A hit that is so forgotten that you can’t get the MP3 from Amazon, so the link is to her album. The hit was “Better Than You”.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/diamonds-by-herb-alpert/feed/0Hearts by Marty Balinhttp://forgotten-songs.com/hearts-by-marty-balin/
http://forgotten-songs.com/hearts-by-marty-balin/#respondSun, 30 Sep 2018 13:20:56 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=845September 2018 saw the loss of yet another name from rock music history, as Marty Balin died at age 76. Marty Balin was one of the founding members of Jefferson Airplane and also sang with its offshoot, Jefferson Starship. But it was his solo career that has become forgotten by radio now. The Jefferson Airplane … Continue reading "Hearts by Marty Balin"

]]>September 2018 saw the loss of yet another name from rock music history, as Marty Balin died at age 76. Marty Balin was one of the founding members of Jefferson Airplane and also sang with its offshoot, Jefferson Starship. But it was his solo career that has become forgotten by radio now.

The Jefferson Airplane years

Marty Balin was obviously a go-getter in the San Francisco music scene. Having difficulty finding a venue for the type of music he wanted to play, he found his own solution, which ended up involving Jefferson Airplane, the new band he had formed with Paul Kantner. Per his website, Marty Balin said:

I wanted to play with electric guitars and drums, but when I mentioned that notion in clubs that I played, the owners would say, “We wouldn’t have you play here, not with drums and electricity. This is a folk club. So I decided to open my own club.”

It was through his club, The Matrix, that Jefferson Airplane gained its first local fame, which led to national exposure. From there, Jefferson Airplane embarked on a six-year period of great success, though Marty Balin didn’t stick around for all of it, leaving the group in 1971. In a 1993 interview, Mr. Balin explained why:

I don’t know, just Janis [Joplin]’s death. That struck me. It was dark times. Everybody was doing so much drugs and I couldn’t even talk to the band. I was into yoga at the time. I’d given up drinking and I was into totally different area, health foods and getting back to the streets, working with the American Indians. It was getting strange for me. Cocaine was a big deal in those days and I wasn’t a cokie and I couldn’t talk with everybody who had an answer for every…thing, rationalizing everything that happened. I thought it made the music really tight and constrictive and ruined it. So after Janis died, I thought, I’m not gonna go onstage and play that kind of music; I don’t like cocaine.

The Jefferson Starship years, and going solo

Following his time in Jefferson Airplane, Marty Balin did some producing and managing work and joined a rather short-lived band before Paul Kantner asked him to write a song for Jefferson Starship, which had spun off from the broken-up Jefferson Airplane. Mr. Balin ended up contributing vocals as well as lyrics, and by the next year was a permanent member of the group.

The mid-70s were quite good for Jefferson Starship and for Marty Balin, who sang lead on several of the group’s biggest hits of that era, including “Miracles”, “With Your Love”, and “Runaway”. Following 1978’s Earth, Mr. Balin left for a solo career. His last appearance with the group may well have been the group’s most infamous, as they appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special* as the holographic band. What a way to go.

For whatever reason, it took until May 1981 (by which time Jefferson Starship had released two more albums with him) for Marty Balin to release his first album, called, fittingly enough, Balin.

The first single from Balin, “Hearts”, was not written by Mr. Balin; instead, it was written by Jesse Barish, who had written for Jefferson Starship. A fairly straightforward song about the singer missing his former love and thinking of what he could have done differently, “Hearts” worked in the mishmash of genres that was pop music in 1981.

Chart Performance

“Hearts” entered Billboard’s Hot 100 at #86 for the week ending May 23, 1981 (chart) and rocketed into the top 40 quickly before slowing its ascent and finally peaking at #8 for the week ending August 8 (chart | magazine). In all, it lasted for an fairly impressive (for the time) 21 weeks on the chart, and its performance was enough for Billboard to rank it #41 in its year-end chart for 1981 (magazine).

However, Marty Balin’s first solo hit turned out to be his biggest as well. A follow-up single, “Atlanta Lady (Something About Your Love)” barely made the top 30. Only one single from his next album cracked the Hot 100 at all; following that, Marty Balin never charted a solo single again, though he did continue to record after that. He also joined the KBC Band with his old bandmate, Paul Kantner, and he did stints with both a reformed Jefferson Airplane and a reformed Jefferson Starship.

Marty Balin died on September 27, 2018. His wife, Susan, described his legacy, in part, thus:

Marty’s fans describe him as having had a substantial impact for the better of the world: “One of the greatest voices of all time, a writer of songs that will never fade, and founder of the quintessential San Francisco band of the sixties.” His music is known for being the soundtrack to all of life’s monumental moments.

While Marty Balin’s best known hits with Jefferson Starship are mainstays on classic hits and/or classic rock radio stations, “Hearts” has fallen by the wayside. The last I heard it on any station was on a soft AC station in Idaho in 2003. It deserves better.

* I’d love to link to it, but as most people know, it’s never been officially released, and most involved would love to wish it away. Whether that number included the members of Jefferson Starship, I don’t know.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/hearts-by-marty-balin/feed/0Walk Away by Donna Summerhttp://forgotten-songs.com/walk-away-by-donna-summer/
http://forgotten-songs.com/walk-away-by-donna-summer/#respondMon, 24 Sep 2018 03:49:50 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=831It’s certainly not uncommon to hear of a popular recording artist switching labels. In some cases, the jilted label waits a while, then releases a greatest hits collection from that artist containing only those hits (and almost-hits) which that artist recorded while under contract to that particular label. And that’s all well and good. Less … Continue reading "Walk Away by Donna Summer"

]]>It’s certainly not uncommon to hear of a popular recording artist switching labels. In some cases, the jilted label waits a while, then releases a greatest hits collection from that artist containing only those hits (and almost-hits) which that artist recorded while under contract to that particular label. And that’s all well and good. Less common, though, is for a label to continue to release singles by a long-gone artist. That, however, is exactly what happened with Donna Summer.

The beginning

Born LaDonna Gaines at the end of 1948, Donna Summer took her stage name from her one-time married name. Having entered into what would be about a three-year marriage to Helmuth Sommer in 1973, she anglicized the last name, and it stuck.

Her musical career had gotten off to a slow start, with a few singles released under the name “Donna Gaines” and a few more released under “Donna Summer”, before she met Giorgio Moroder, with whom she would collaborate quite often. The two of them co-wrote the 1975 #2 smash hit “Love to Love You Baby”*, which got her a contract with Casablanca Records. From there, her career skyrocketed through the rest of the decade, with several #1 singles and albums. By 1979, Donna Summer was firmly established as the Queen of Disco.**

Changing labels

It was around late 1979, just as Casablanca was releasing On the Radio: Greatest Hits Vol. I and II, that Donna Summer was feeling some dissatisfaction. Perhaps it was because she had conquered disco so completely, or perhaps it was because it was obvious that the Disco Era was quickly coming to an end, but regardless of the reason, Ms. Summer was ready to branch out into different styles of music. Unfortunately, Casablanca didn’t share that desire, and so, because of that and other reasons, Donna Summer left for Geffen Records in 1980, becoming the first artist signed to the new label.

Now with a new label, Ms. Summer would quickly release The Wanderer, an album featuring several non-disco musical styles ranging from new wave to gospel. The title track would climb to #3 on Billboard’s Hot 100, and seemingly everything was going well for Donna Summer.

Casablanca’s response

But where did that leave Casablanca? They had, after all, already just released a greatest hits collection (though there was talk of another one in 1980). What else could they do? The choice Casablanca made was to milk Donna Summer’s last Casablanca studio album, Bad Girls, for all it could.

Bad Girls was, to put it mildly, huge. A double album, it was released in the spring of 1979, when disco was ubiquitous. The album had spawned two number one hits, the title track and “Hot Stuff” (which were, at one point, both in the top three), and a number two, “Dim All The Lights”. The album had gone double platinum and was also a success with the critics. And, being a double album, it had several more tracks available for release as singles, so that’s what Casablanca did.

Casablanca released a couple of tracks, “Sunset People” and “Our Love”, in different international markets to start. But what became the sixth single from Bad Girls, “Walk Away”, was released to the American market.

Yet another love-gone-wrong song, “Walk Away” perhaps somewhat misleadingly sounds rather upbeat due to its disco sound. And though the American music scene had changed drastically since the release of Bad Girls, “Walk Away” still managed to get some traction on the charts.

Chart Performance

Entering the Hot 100 at #82 for the week ending September 13, 1980 (chart | magazine), “Walk Away” debuted just one week before “The Wanderer” did, though “The Wanderer” debuted the next week at a higher position than that of “Walk Away” in its second week. By October 18, with “The Wanderer” still climbing and about to break into the top ten, “Walk Away” peaked at #36 (chart | magazine). “The Wanderer” was still holding at its peak position when “Walk Away” dropped out of the Hot 100 after 11 weeks, replaced in the Hot 100 by the follow-up to “The Wanderer”, “Cold Love”. Advantage, Geffen Records.

Casablanca Records was pretty much shut down in the early 1980s by its then-parent company, PolyGram, but its successor, Mercury Records, scored one last victory in its battle with Donna Summer when it was determined that she owed Casablanca one more record to fulfill her contract, and that record, She Works Hard For The Money (released by Mercury), yielded her biggest hit of the decade.

Donna Summer, of course, kept recording through the 1980s and 1990s, eventually signing with, of all the labels out there, Mercury. In the 2000s, she signed with Sony Music’s Burgundy Records and released one final studio album before her unfortunate, premature death from lung cancer in 2012.

How “Walk Away” became forgotten

Of course, with so many big hits in the 1970s and 1980s, it’s easy for a lower charting song like “Walk Away” to fall by the wayside, and that’s exactly what has happened. I’m not sure I remember hearing it on the radio in 1980, let alone since then. It would be nice to hear it somewhere.

* Sorry to have to link to a single version; Amazon doesn’t have the full 17-minute version available as an MP3.
** Yes, I’ve glossed over quite a bit of her heyday, but I think most of my readers will remember the many hits she had during that time.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.

]]>http://forgotten-songs.com/walk-away-by-donna-summer/feed/0Breakin…There’s No Stopping Us by Ollie and Jerryhttp://forgotten-songs.com/breakin-theres-no-stopping-us-by-ollie-and-jerry/
http://forgotten-songs.com/breakin-theres-no-stopping-us-by-ollie-and-jerry/#respondTue, 11 Sep 2018 04:47:30 +0000http://forgotten-songs.com/?p=822Some pieces of entertainment are best known for the memes they inspire. Such was the case for the 1984’s minor hit Breakin’. Virtually no one remembers the sequel, but its subtitle has appeared all over the internet in recent years. At this point, most people who have spent more than a few hours on the … Continue reading "Breakin…There’s No Stopping Us by Ollie and Jerry"

]]>Some pieces of entertainment are best known for the memes they inspire. Such was the case for the 1984’s minor hit Breakin’. Virtually no one remembers the sequel, but its subtitle has appeared all over the internet in recent years. At this point, most people who have spent more than a few hours on the internet have seen a lousy sequel to something, be it a movie, a political debate, or virtually anything else, given the title “____ 2: Electric Boogaloo”. Well, thank Breakin’ for that. But also thank Breakin’ for a little remembered Top 10 hit called “Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us” by a duo called Ollie and Jerry.

From Raydio to Radio

Ollie and Jerry was the name of a short-lived recording duo consisting of bassist/vocalist Jerry Knight and drummer Ollie E. Brown, both of whom, among other things, worked with the group Raydio (the best known member of which was Ray Parker Jr.). Mr. Knight was one of the founding members of Raydio and can be prominently heard on “Jack and Jill” (which still gets enough spins not to be eligible for this website). He left Raydio after its first album (called, fittingly enough, Raydio) for a solo career which saw a few songs hit the R&B chart. Mr. Brown, meanwhile was a session drummer who appeared on all Raydio’s albums.

Once Ollie and Jerry was formed, the duo was quickly signed to Polydor Records and recorded two tracks for the soundtrack (released by Polydor) to Breakin’, including the quasi-title track “Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us” (which, if I remember correctly, had the movie’s title pasted onto the beginning of the track’s title for name recognition).

Chart Performance

Almost a month after the release of Breakin’ to theaters, “Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us” entered Billboard’s Hot 100 fairly strongly, coming in at #62 for the week ending June 2, 1984 (chart); it hit its peak of #9 almost exactly two months later (chart). In all, it remained on the Hot 100 for 18 weeks, which was fairly decent for 1984 – decent enough for the song to rank #80 on Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 Singles for 1984 (Wikipedia chart | Billboard 1984 Year-End issue). It did hit #1 on the Dance/Disco chart and #3 on what was then called the Black Singles chart.

Following the success of “Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us”, Ollie and Jerry also recorded “Electric Boogaloo”, which was, of course, basically the title track from Breakin’ 2. However, though that single charted on the R&B and dance charts, it missed the Hot 100 entirely…and it isn’t even available as a digital download on Amazon at the time of this writing. The duo split shortly after that, having never recorded an entire album.

Following the split of Ollie and Jerry, Ollie E. Brown produced and/or performed on many albums for the next couple of decades but was in real estate by the start of this decade. Jerry Knight, meanwhile, wrote and produced for many artists as well before dying at age 44 of cancer in 1996.

The Disappearance of the Song

And when was the last time I heard this track on an American terrestrial radio station? Why, when I requested it, that’s when. Star 107.9 in Columbus*, one of the best of the 80s radio stations to hit the scene during that genre’s brief span as the Next Big Thing**, had an all-request lunch hour back around 1999, and even though I was over a thousand miles away, I happened to be listening to that station at the time, and they tracked the song down for me. Unfortunately, the years since then have given us a lot of consolidation and a lot less all-request lunch hours or originality in general, and tracks like “Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us” have fallen by the wayside in radio’s rush toward the same old bland mix found in every market now.

* A tribute site to that pioneering but long-gone station may be found here.
** The other big 80s station from that era would have to be WXXY in the Chicagoland area, which was much better known as “The 80s Channel”.Note: this post contains affiliate links. View my affiliate link disclaimer here.